floral

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Eau Légère Pailletee

Large frosted lavender Lolita Lempicka bottle with silver embossed ivy, sitting in a pile of pink and white Good & Plenty.

(Paillettes are spangles, the dangling sequins on shimmering gowns.)

Fairy dust potion.
Seriously, this is what Tinkerbell sprays all over folks so they can fly.

My favorite L.L. bottle ever, filled with the most magical, silky, pink frosted liquid, scented with a light powdery version of the original.

This came out in 2001, but it’s worth nabbing second hand. The scent is lovely, of course–violets and aniseed and sheer musk–but the body shimmer feels and looks so amazing on the skin. (Especially dark skin! The only time I ever broke my no-perfume-in-costume rule was for the actress who introduced me to this beauty. She looked incredible under the stage-lights.)

I was the only kid who loved getting the little boxes of Good & Plenty licorice candy while trick-or-treating. Lolita Lempicka smells like they taste, so maybe that’s why I enjoy it so much.

 This is a sparkly song.

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White Linen

white linenClassy soap powder.

Aldehydes and lilac with some sweetness, settling into soft floral sandalwood that lasts all day long, just within personal space.

There’s a retro middle-class “cleanliness is next to godliness” vibe to it, laundered and starched and proper.

Sometimes I put a drop on the dryer sheet when I wash bedding.

Dog and Butterfly first came out in 1978, too.

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L’eau de Sonia Rykiel

L'Eau de Sonia Rykiel edgy
Mini short-sleeved sweater shaped bottle with a light blue turtleneck cap.

Sadly, the most interesting part of this perfume is the sweater shaped bottle.
The juniper lemon skin scent gives me nothing but bleached sheets on a clothesline and fades in five minutes.

I liked Sonia Rykiel, but one this is forgettable.

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill also came out in 1998 (and was extremely popular in France.) This song has a bit more citrus splash than the fragrance.

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Hanae

Hanae edgyA princess on a shopping mall spree.

Candied strawberries and caramel apples, framed by galleria escalator glass and chrome.

Trendy and young, but with impeccable taste–the patchouli gives a tartness to the berries, a metallic edge that takes it out of Flowerbomb territory and puts it more in league with House of Sillage Chevaux d’Or.

Elbow length projection for three hours or so.

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Honey & The Moon

honey and the moon edgy
Small splash bottle with gold cap and printed back label–visible through the perfume–of a bee.

A great one for sweet tooth cravings.

TokyoMilk #10 is a spilled pot of syrupy tea with cream, smoky jasmine and sugared violets.
Sandalwood at the bottom gives the honey a nice bit of bee-sting.

Pretty and warm, with good sillage and amazing longevity.

Edit– 2/27/21
This one has grown on me lately. The quarantine mixed with winter doldrums has made me miss my childhood home and the scents of my step-father’s apiaries.
Honey & the Moon is simpler, and less animalic Bee, but has more woods at the base. Beehive boxes are usually made of pine or cedar, for their non-bee insect repellent properties–Absolue Pour le Soir nails this note perfectly–so I like that bit of structure.

The candle is quite nice, too. Margot Elena’s hand creams are also popular. I’ve tried a few and they feel lovely, but I’m always testing something on my wrists, and I avoid scented lotions. She makes a Honey & the Moon “crema” creme eau de parfum as well, that I’m curious about–always nice to have something travel friendly.

Lit candle in a tin, with printed bee lid. A fifteen minute burn scents my whole house.

Santana and Michelle Branch came out with this sweet song in 2003, too.

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Zagara

zagara edgy
Yellow bowed bottle with golden eau, and an art deco label of two ladies’ faces.

Orange blossom.

Starts out sugar sweet, the dust on marshmallows,  then turns jasmine-like, with a touch of honey.
Finishes fruity-juicy, more gourmand than neroli’s greener woody-spice edge.

It’s the floral note easily found in the opening of Coco Mademoiselle, and tastes delicious in Italian Cream Cakes.

This one was bottled for a mini collection for tourists from the Borsari 1970 Museum in Parma, in the seventies–the caps are hideous plastic, but they’re effective–it’s quite well preserved for being so old.

Honey sweet erotic tune from Princess Nokia–

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Zazou

Zazou(I’m falling in love with these solid perfumes. Airplane friendly and moisturizing!)

Zazou–surprisingly, given the twee packaging–is a sophisticated little neroli limeade spiked with aqvavit.
It opens fresh, a zing of citrus as it warms up on the skin, then relaxes and turns floral with an herbal undercurrent.
Sits just above the skin for hours until sinking under into warm green woods.

The Zazou subculture in France most likely took their name from Cab Calloway’s scat riff “Zaz, zuh, zah!”

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Omnia Crystalline

omnia crystalline
Bvlgari chain link mini bottle on pale Anjou pears.

Well made, but buttoned up as tight as an adjunct professor at Brigham Young.

Nice not quite ripe pear on top, pale floral musk and modesty on the bottom, with yards of projection for two hours.

Sadly, I get none of the tea or bamboo that would give it depth or interest.

This young woman is both talented and interesting.

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Brooklyn

brooklyn No 9 edgyAlcohol and asphalt, perhaps.
I might get a slight gust of subway air rising from the station at Jay Street-Borough Hall. Maybe a whiff of the spices from the import stores on Atlantic Avenue, and possibly a floral green breeze from the Botanic Garden.

But Kings County New York isn’t tentative, or maybe.

Give me the jazz zest, the hip-hop fire and the Philharmonic sweetness.
Give me diesel fumes of the BQE, Fulton Street funk and Coney Island animalics.
Give me drag queen cheesecake, everything bagels and spumoni on the Bridge.

This stuff projects only inches, not the length of Flatbush Avenue, and lasts barely through lunch, much less a Spike Lee movie, or a season binge of 2 Broke Girls.

I was born there.
Don’t spill a weak gin and tonic on the sidewalk and tell me it’s Brooklyn.

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Romance

romance
Magazine peelie of couple–a reminder to see if Romance was still as good as I remembered on my next shopping trip. (It wasn’t.)

A rose by any other name would probably smell better.

When this came out 20 years ago, the chamomile tea opening made it special, something unique for the teenage set, a touch of class. The current version is cut too deep with ginger lemon cough drops, and it’s lost its delicacy.
Now it just smells like every floral musk deodorant marketed to high school girls.

Okay, so maybe I need to listen to Aretha a bit more.
(This one came out in 1998, too.)